Stumble
by Tozz
Summary: Elli is keeping a painful secret from Dr. Trent, one that even she herself doesn't want to believe. Contest entry for "Secrets."


So this is like, my first contest entry :O I'm really pumped. I wrote this in a frenzy at midnight last night and finished it up this morning. (Sorry for the numerous mistakes that I am positive I made x__x)

This is a story that I've been wanting to write since...well, basically since I started writing HM fanfiction. But for some reason I never could do it. Originally it was going to be a longfic, but I felt it fit the theme of "Secrets" well enough and decided to turn it into a oneshot. I like it better this way, actually.

However, I never would've been able to write this without a brilliant but simple suggestion that b4k4 ch4n gave me, so I am really grateful to her! Thanks so much. It's been great talking to you, b4k4 ch4n :)

I realize this fic is kind of sloppy, and actually really depressing, but I still like it. I'm just glad to finally be able to enter a contest along side all the other wonderful participants :D

Reviews are appreciated, as always.

/ / /

Elli was nervous when she began working at the clinic, for many reasons.

Dr. Trent was young and handsome and known to prefer being alone. He was somewhat of an enigma, but no one questioned it as they all trusted him with their health.

So she was as surprised as anyone when he'd offered her a position as a nurse. She happily accepted, of course, though the job _was_ nerve-wracking. She had a deep admiration for him—maybe even more than just admiration—and didn't want to disappoint him in any way.

But she was also nervous for a different reason. A reason she didn't tell him. Couldn't tell him. He didn't need to know. Not at first, anyway.

/ / /

Little white dots littered the tiled floor—they were everywhere, like sprinkles on a sundae. It was a mess.

Elli clutched the edge of the counter for support. When she tripped, she'd grabbed the counter to stop her fall, but ended up dropping the pill bottle she was carrying. The lid popped off and the pills spilled all over the ground, even getting in between the tiles.

She stooped down and started picking the capsules up one by one, dropping them back into the bottle, when Dr. Trent poked his head out of his office.

"What happened?"

His question made her face burn. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I dropped these by accident."

He walked over to her and crouched down in front of her. She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes.

"Elli. Are you okay?"

She knew he had to be frustrated, though he tried not to show it. He hated mistakes, and she'd been making more than usual—always tripping or stumbling and dropping things. It was scaring her, but she still couldn't tell him the truth.

"I-I'm fine," she lied, still gathering up the pills. "I just wasn't…paying attention."

He put his hand over hers, stopping her. Her hand curled around the pill she was holding. Dr. Trent had been so gentle to her lately, and it only made her secret more painful to hold.

She finally looked up but didn't say anything.

"Elli, I'm worried about you," he said, in a low voice.

_You should be,_ she thought.

"You shouldn't be," she said, smiling at him.

/ / /

Elli did her best to minimize her mistakes after that, or at least get better at hiding them. Dr. Trent didn't deserve the burden of worrying over her. She needed to keep that to herself.

"Elli, would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Elli looked up from the file she was organizing, her mouth open slightly in pure surprise. She'd been so busy worrying lately she'd forgotten all about the Starry Night festival. And on top of that, she hadn't dreamed Dr. Trent would ever ask her.

"Um," she said, trying to remember how to say the word "yes" out loud. He took this as hesitation and coughed, looking embarrassed.

"Of course, I understand if you have plans…or perhaps you'd rather eat with your grandmother and brother?"

"Yes," she said finally, and then realized what he'd just said. "I mean, no. No, I don't have plans. And…oh, those two can get on for one night without me. Let's have dinner, just the two of us."

Of course, she was thrilled at the prospect of dining alone with Dr. Trent—it'd be like a date!—but she also didn't think she could bear to be around her grandmother. It was only a reminder of her secret.

A reminder of the inevitable.

/ / /

After their Starry Night dinner, Dr. Trent warmed up to Elli even more. Elli wanted to be happy—and there were rare moments when she really, truly was—but lying to him got harder and harder each day, not only because she realized she loved him, but because it was nearly physically impossible to hide everything from him.

She'd been tripping more and more frequently. Once, it was when she was coming down the stairs in the clinic. The familiar pain shot up both legs and she fell forward, like a rag doll, all the way down until she landed on her hip at the bottom of the staircase. She had to be on crutches for weeks.

"Elli, won't you tell me what's wrong?" Dr. Trent pleaded, even after she'd recovered. "I can't help you if you won't tell me."

"I told you, nothing's wrong," she answered, the same lie she'd told so many times. It never got easier, though. It always felt like it'd get lodged in her throat at the last possible second, and the truth would come out.

But not yet. She just couldn't tell him, even if now he really did need to know.

/ / /

Her grandmother Ellen died at the end of spring.

It was unclear why. Old age was a possibility, of course, but Dr. Trent suspected it was the disease that had confined her to her rocking chair, unable to even stand up any longer, let alone walk. Her body had deteriorated too much.

Elli cried for her grandmother, but, selfishly, she cried for herself as well. She was running out of time.

A few weeks after Ellen's death, Elli fell for what felt like the thousandth time. Her knees just buckled, and luckily Dr. Trent was there to catch her.

She buried her face in his chest, suddenly breaking down and sobbing.

"Elli, what's wrong?" he asked, his tone patient but laced with a concerned urgency. He held her, waiting for her answer.

Finally, she told him.

"Doctor…I'm sick." She whispered it into the folds of his lab coat, her throat too constricted to speak any louder.

His arms remained tightly around her. He ran a hand through her bob, gently caressing the back of her neck. "What?"

She couldn't tell if he meant he couldn't hear her or didn't understand. So she repeated herself.

"I'm sick."

"But what do you mean?" He pulled away a little to look at her tear-stained face. "Sick with what?" His brow was crinkled with ignorant worry; he probably didn't even suspect the truth. Elli wished she could turn back time and pretend like this wasn't happening, but it was and she couldn't keep it a secret any longer.

"I think that…that I have the same disease that killed my grandmother."

He pulled even further away now, his hands running down the sides of her arms, still holding onto her. That was good, because she didn't think she could stand on her own anymore.

He just stared at her, speechless, so she continued. The words came quickly now.

"It's something I'd always been terrified of. It's one of the reasons I was so eager to work for you in the first place. It's selfish, but…but I wanted to save more than my grandmother. I wanted save myself, too. To try to find a cure. And, oh Goddess, what if Stu gets it and I just—"

"Wait, wait," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Wait a second. You think you might have the disease that Ellen had?"

Elli sniffled and nodded, wiping at her eyes in vain.

"But what would possibly make you think that?"

She laughed bitterly. "I know you've noticed it, you can't say you haven't. It's the reason I've been so clumsy lately…I've been losing the feeling in my legs. It's gradual, but it's spreading. It's…it's just like what happened to Grandma."

He looked at her, and his gaze was so sad and broken that Elli could feel her heart tearing. Not breaking; that would be quick, like broken glass. This felt more like ripping paper—long and slow and drawn out.

"I love you. Elli…" He stopped, shaking his head again more insistently this time. "I love you. You can't be…you can't be _dying_. It's impossible."

She closed her eyes, tear after tear sliding down her face. "But I am," she breathed, hardly able to even form the words.

/ / /

Elli's condition, for whatever reason, had developed at an accelerated rate. It had obviously been passed down through genetics, but still not much was known about it, other than it caused the inflicted person's body to slowly deteriorate. Dr. Trent did as much research as he could on the matter, much frantically than he ever had before, but he had no answer. And no answer meant no cure.

They married a couple weeks after she told him. Their life together was peaceful but fragile. Both were painfully aware of how flimsy their bond really was. She could be taken from him at any time.

When they made love, he was so careful with her, so afraid that he might break her. And when they found out she was pregnant, they both wept. But in the end, they decided to keep the baby.

Amazingly, wonderfully, Elli survived the pregnancy and the birth, and the three of them had four whole months of bliss.

And at the end of those fourth months, Elli went to sleep beside Dr. Trent and never woke up again.

At the funeral, when he was cloaked in black, he clung on to that little bundle that was his child, their child, and cried. He wondered how he could possibly bear the loss of her until he looked down into that face, so innocent and delicate, and knew he had to. For his daughter's sake.

And when Ellen—they'd named her after Elli's grandmother—took her first steps, tears filled Dr. Trent's eyes and he scooped her up in his arms, holding her close. Never had he been so glad to see a person walk.

Until, of course, he walked that very same daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. When he let go of her arm, she remained steady, standing on her own two feet even without his support.

He would live to see her take countless more steps into the future, with and without him by her side.

As a father, he couldn't imagine asking for more.

/ / /


End file.
